1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to a method for processing an advancing avian carcass and more particularly to a method for processing an advancing avian carcass wherein a muscle part is removed from the advancing warm carcass and preserving of the removed part is initiated within two hours after removal.
2. Prior Art
Present avian processing methods and particularly turkey processing involves the steps of killing, bleeding, defeathering, eviscerating, trimming, washing, chilling, segmenting, boning, processing and packaging.
Eviscerating involves the process of removing the inedible entrails and parts of the turkey. The above defined process from killing to segmentation and boning takes from 2 to 36 hours. At the time of boning, the turkey carcasses are in various phases of rigor.
The boning of the carcass past the prerigor phase is difficult and can cause a reduction in yield. Boning and segmenting meat in a rigor phase can result in muscle toughening when frozen and subsequently cooked. Processing of prerigor or early rigor boned and segmented turkey meat will result in decreased moisture retention and yield loss in cooked product.
Furthermore, according to the presently used system, the whole avian carcass is chilled prior to boning. This results in costly energy loss since not all the chilled parts may ultimatly be usable and the process is labor-intensive.
It is thus desired to have a process for segmenting and boning avians and particularly turkeys which produces a product that is more tender and retains more natural juices during cooking and which is less costly and time-consuming than currently employed methods.